Mythical Garden

 Hey hey ~

I've had a few requests for an update about US shipping and the new tariffs and what not, so I just wanted to put out a quick update. 

Unfortunately, for the most part all I can say is 'wait and see', and I know that's not very reassuring.

In short I have no intentions of stopping shipping to the USA, but the shipping costs are going to go up, its inevitable.

The new system requires that sellers pay duties and taxes upfront on US shipments, putting the burden on us to charge you (the customer) at the point of sale, rather than you paying customs directly after your item arrives. If we don't pre pay and have all of the paperwork correct, then you are charged a flat rate fee of $80 when your item arrives. (If this happens to you with one of our packages contact me immediately.) Our UK postal service (Royal Mail) put out an announcement that they will be setting up a service that allows us to do all the prepayments and paperwork online, and they'll handle the rest. This service goes live next week. I won't know exactly how it works, or exactly what the fees are, until it goes live.

The duties/taxes are different depending on the country of origin of your items. All of our items are manufactured in China, therefore that's their country of origin.

For the Midnight Ocean and Mythical Garden campaigns, prepare for your shipping to increase in cost before cards are charged. We don't know how much by yet; and with everything changing there's nothing to say it won't be different again before these projects are ready to ship. We strive to keep our shipping costs as low as possible, and I will continue to do everything I can on that front. I know that the Midnight Ocean has a lot of heavier items, and we might be able to refund just those items to people who need to get back under a weight bracket for cheaper shipping. Bear with us; we'll handle it closer to the time. 

For now that's it, just know that we are keeping an eye on things in the background. If I find out anything concrete then I'll update again. 

Hey hey ~

I got the sample shipment back so I have some pictures. Unfortunately I don't have my equipment right now so they're a little rough, sorry! There were a few questions in the comments of the last update about the surveys, so I'll add the answers here too. 

Cat skulls. Don't mind the lighting, they are exactly the same just in two different sizes. I wanted to directly compare the difference before our next project so I just decided to offer both. 

The physalis branch pin. You can see the metal parts here. The branches and the shadowed/back parts are all metal. This is a theme for all the branch pins. 

Physalis mini pin. They're more see through in person, its just very hard to photograph!

Purple Iris/harvest mouse. Its come out a beautiful colour, I really like this one in person much more than the art. 

Violet Carpenter free-bee. Its soooo hard to photograph this pin but they're so pretty. Every one is a different colour as the heat treatment makes the rainbow different each time. 

And a WIP preview of the picture window shaker pin (twice so the image isn't huge). This still has weeks of work to go T_T. But its looking great so far. 

The rough estimate for when we're charging cards is... Hopefully around December, but no promises. There are nearly 50 different designs to order, and I don't know how long the manufacturer will take to make them all. Now that I'm happy with the sizes/finishes I chose, I'll get getting the big order in asap - but its going to take weeks, realistically. The quicksand pins are notoriously slow, its why I ordered them early.

Otherwise, that's it for now. A lot of work to do in the background and no much to update for a while, I should think. Feel free to leave any questions here though!

Hello hello ~

Back with the final designs and a few updates.

First off, the last of the designs are finished ~



Orchid mantis, and white begonia.



The doormouse branch pin. The fade effect will be done with UV print.

The chestnut mini pin that matches, this design also has UV printing. Also, a few of the missing pledges came in, so I re-added this pink dahlia to the mini pin collection. 

A peek at a few of the alternate colourways that will be in the survey store to unlock. These are just extras, they'll unlock at 20 pieces purchased, along with a couple of others.

Plus a couple of sample previews from the manufacturer;





These should be with me next week, so hopefully it'll be time to make the big order. That means its survey time. If you could complete and send them in at your earliest convenience, it would help me a lot. You'll be able to edit them until just before I start shipping things, and you should get a warning before they lock. Cards won't be charged until that point. Fingers crossed if I haven't messed them up, they'll be with you in a day or three. I'd really like to get this project fulfilled before the end of 2025, but we're going to be ordering a large quantity of pins at once and I'm bound by the time it takes to make them. I'm gonna do my best though.

Keep an eye out ~

Super quick update, I got an update from the manufacturer with some of the sample pins;

The skull mini, the purple iris and the rainbow bee are in this order too, so hopefully we'll see those soon :D.